Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » Pockets of Planets (split from Fun Game Ideas ...)
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Re: Pockets of Planets (split from Fun Game Ideas ...) |
Thu, 04 December 2003 04:53 |
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1) An IT can't ship other people's colonists, only ore and ships.
2) if you have jumpgates you don't need the IT to do jack squat but sit there and smile.
3) Easiest way to (and this is purely suggestive) cut off the normal races building gates is to make them HE. But that's probably less fun..
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Re: Pockets of Planets (split from Fun Game Ideas ...) |
Thu, 04 December 2003 11:37 |
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1. Every race must have Jumpgate technology - either via some kind of hack, or (and more likely) by using a hull with the jumpgate on board of which each race has a set number at the start and must obviously avoid losing them!!!
2. IT non-playing race has stargate in each pocket.
3. Inter-pocket travel without using the gates is possible... but due to the very size of the gaps between each pocket (I'd recommend at LEAST 1000ly if this is allowed) it's pretty much a bad idea - If banned then the gap can be reduced significantly.
4. PP banned. You'd never see a packet coming from within a pocket... and launching packets externally would be a bad idea to allow.
5. Everyone (bar HE) can build stargates... just remember that ordinary gates are pretty low range and don't handle sending over large distances. Sending your own ships via your own gates from pocket to pocket is possible... but why the hell would you do such a thing when you've got access to an infinity/infinity stargate????
6. If spacial inter pocket travel is banned - a non-player would need access to all the race files just to make sure that they can have a quick glance at each turn and spot anyone in "deep space".
7. I highly recommend having a non-participating partner who has access to all turn files, passwords and the host utility - if only to make sure replacements can be found if required. This game strikes me as being a bit of a long haul....
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Re: Pockets of Planets (split from Fun Game Ideas ...) |
Thu, 04 December 2003 15:03 |
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freakyboy wrote on Thu, 04 December 2003 10:37 | 3. Inter-pocket travel without using the gates is possible... but due to the very size of the gaps between each pocket (I'd recommend at LEAST 1000ly if this is allowed) it's pretty much a bad idea - If banned then the gap can be reduced significantly.
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I can see in the extra huge universe rougly 950 ly between pockets, with room for 21 pockets, of which a few would be slightly closer.
The pocket would have a diameter of 50 ly with 15 planets per pocket and an average distance between stars of 10 ly.
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Re: Pockets of Planets (split from Fun Game Ideas ...) |
Fri, 05 December 2003 08:13 |
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Micha wrote on Thu, 04 December 2003 14:26 |
I thought the idea was to have "normal" distances between the stars in one pocket? "Nomal" being 50-80ly ... 10ly is really really close!
The open space between pockets can be more or less depending on if it is allowed to travell through deepspace (larger distances) or not allowed (closer distances, +100ly would already be enough, but it of course wouldn't look as good, 300ly might be nice).
mch
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Yes, but personally, restrictions on inter-pocket travel is a non-intuitive and hard to enforce, restriction pocket size could be expanded though...
if you allow 900 ly as the distance between pockets (9 years at warp 10) then the internal pocket distance increases to 25 ly...
if you allow 850 ly inter-pocket, then the internal pocket distance increases to 38 ly...
if you allow 800 ly inter-pocket, then the internal pocket distance increases to 50 ly...
les.
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Re: Pockets of Planets - jumpgates / starting ships |
Fri, 05 December 2003 09:40 |
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Micha | | | Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002 Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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freakyboy wrote on Thu, 04 December 2003 17:37 | 1. Every race must have Jumpgate technology - either via some kind of hack, or (and more likely) by using a hull with the jumpgate on board of which each race has a set number at the start and must obviously avoid losing them!!!
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Like I said in the other topic: ALL ships in a fleet need to have a jumpgate, else the fleet won't jump. This means you would only have those 10 ships and nothing else ... they'll need colonizer and (MT?) cargo pods and will be lost when you colonize, or you have to make sure you can drop on a race already living in this cluster ... (the IT colonizing all planets in the universe? just a suggestion, not really serious).
Jumpgate ... I might be wrong but the idea was that each race would have"his own" pocket, develop it and defend it against intruders. However if you start with 10 jump gate ships and all IT gates are open for use in each pocket there won't be the feeling of "your own" pocket, everybody can spread around ... there will be no "isolation" to start with ...
So either the IT gates stay closed for a while (not my preference since that also means sending no scouts/warships), or the jumpgate tech/ships comes later ...
I see two options:
- each race builds it's own jumpgate freigthers. It is possible to lower the tech needed for the jumpgate, but that means a hacked exe and not using AutoHost.
- each race receives or buys jumpgate ships ... or maybe these ships are scattered over the universe and when you stumble on one it is transferred to you, but that again might happen too soon ...
Actually there is a thrid option which means making sure all races have the jumpgate required tech from the start but that's not really an option ...
Just trying to point out that starting with jumpgate ships will make it a whole different experience, you will be able to expand to any cluster you like from turn 1 ...
mch
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Re: Pockets of Planets |
Fri, 05 December 2003 12:02 |
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"between the idea and the implementation falls the shadow"
OK, my math was off... if you have 640 planets with 21 pockets, you have 30 planets (roughly per pocket) in pocket with diameter 150 ly you get an average distance of 20 ly between planets, and about 600 ly between pocket... if redone with a medium dense (360 planets) you would have an average distance between planets in a pocket of 30 ly.
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Re: Pockets of Planets - jumpgates / starting ships |
Fri, 05 December 2003 12:24 |
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Actually... the IT colonising every planet may not be a bad idea....
If the IT was set up as a 1% growth tri-immune race and then colonised every single last planet with 100 colonists (1kt) then That'd do the trick as far as colonising is concerned. Since PP is banned and the IT would always be set to ally you'd never be dumb enough to packet attack an IT planet, and you wouldn't bomb them either.
The only danger would be if you bombed an enemy totally out of existence.
There is... another... problem with the IT colonising everything... AR... which is a damned shame.
basically I see this game splitting 2 ways... all IT or diverse with no PP and no AR.
Although... hacked exe also seems to be the solution to all of the problems. If it's not too difficult or demanding... I may be able to set up another version of AH with the hacked exe (if that's possible... any help Ron?) on some webspace I have knocking around - it'd be only used for this game and this game alone, but it'd be a solution. That is of course assuming that Ron wouldn't set up a "hacked" version of AH - which I wouldn't expect him to since if he does it once, then people will forever bug him to do it again... and that's just unfair on him for giving us such an excellent service for free and we suddenly pester him for more.
As far as "pocket" density is concerned, that's not an issue just yet. Pocket density is stumbling block 4 (or something) and we're still stuck on number 1: is this REALLY possible without an all IT game?
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Re: Pockets of Planets - jumpgates / starting ships |
Fri, 05 December 2003 12:41 |
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Micha | | | Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002 Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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freakyboy wrote on Fri, 05 December 2003 18:24 | Actually... the IT colonising every planet may not be a bad idea....
If the IT was set up as a 1% growth tri-immune race and then colonised every single last planet with 100 colonists (1kt) then That'd do the trick as far as colonising is concerned. Since PP is banned and the IT would always be set to ally you'd never be dumb enough to packet attack an IT planet, and you wouldn't bomb them either.
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One could gate to a pocket, drop on a planet, build a dock, build 20 small freighters, drop on all IT planets and remove the pop again, than that pocket would be safe and nobody else can get a colony there (except by deepspace travel).
Quote: | The only danger would be if you bombed an enemy totally out of existence.
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Then you would indeed have to go deepspace ...
Quote: | There is... another... problem with the IT colonising everything... AR... which is a damned shame.
basically I see this game splitting 2 ways... all IT or diverse with no PP and no AR.
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Yup AR wouldn't be able to join with this setup ...
So no PP, no AR, no SS, no CA (?) there goes the diversity I mentioned before! We might as well go with all IT in that case.
Quote: | Although... hacked exe also seems to be the solution to all of the problems. If it's not too difficult or demanding... I may be able to set up another version of AH with the hacked exe (if that's possible... any help Ron?) on some webspace I have knocking around - it'd be only used for this game and this game alone, but it'd be a solution. That is of course assuming that Ron wouldn't set up a "hacked" version of AH - which I wouldn't expect him to since if he does it once, then people will forever bug him to do it again... and that's just unfair on him for giving us such an excellent service for free and we suddenly pester him for more.
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A second AH would be nice, and you're correct we can't expect this from Ron, he's already doing so much for the community.
Quote: | As far as "pocket" density is concerned, that's not an issue just yet. Pocket density is stumbling block 4 (or something) and we're still stuck on number 1: is this REALLY possible without an all IT game?
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Pocket density has some importance but indeed not as much as the jumpgate/all IT matter ...
mch
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Re: Pockets of Planets (split from Fun Game Ideas ...) |
Fri, 05 December 2003 16:33 |
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Why not have the IT guild race have lots(1000's if not 10,000's) of jump gate frieghter ships and have them "sell" or "lease" them to other races as needed - probably sold in exchange for a suitable similar design eg LF+JG for LF+coloniser pod. You can still send an empty colony ship thru the gate and transfer colonists to it once your JG frieghters arrive.
Of course this requires the guild race to be played.
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Re: Pockets of Planets - jumpgates / starting ships |
Fri, 05 December 2003 16:45 |
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Ron | | Commander Forum Administrator Stars! AutoHost Administrator | Messages: 1232
Registered: October 2002 Location: Collegedale, TN | |
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freakyboy wrote on Fri, 05 December 2003 12:24 |
Although... hacked exe also seems to be the solution to all of the problems. If it's not too difficult or demanding... I may be able to set up another version of AH with the hacked exe (if that's possible... any help Ron?) on some webspace I have knocking around - it'd be only used for this game and this game alone, but it'd be a solution. That is of course assuming that Ron wouldn't set up a "hacked" version of AH - which I wouldn't expect him to since if he does it once, then people will forever bug him to do it again... and that's just unfair on him for giving us such an excellent service for free and we suddenly pester him for more.
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You're correct that if I do it for one, I'll have to do it for all. That's why I told Verker 'no' when he asked if I'd host VML/StarEd games on Stars! AutoHost.
As for a separate AH, anyone is welcome to build on the original perl code written by Thomas Tong that is available from http://library.southern.edu/stars/kn2050.htm
and I'll supply the template file that is missing from the zip, and the www upload perl script written by Alan Beall.
The current Stars! AutoHost code is not available. If I can learn Perl through building on Thomas Tong's code, then anyone else can to. Half the fun of running AutoHost in the early days was modifying the code and adding new features, and I don't plan on just giving out the current code after spending so much time on it.
Yes, the code's messy and still has a few bugs (turn gen schedule code), and yes, there in another important module I need to write or have written, and I'd like to integrate this forum with AutoHost such that you'd have to login here to download/upload your turns.
Call me paranoid, or selfish I guess
I do believe in Open Source, etc... guess I'm afraid of 'code forking', and of becoming obsolete if someone used current AH code to make something so much better that I wouldn't be useful anymore. I may have to do that someday, but not yet.
Ron Miller
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Re: Pockets of Planets (split from Fun Game Ideas ...) |
Fri, 05 December 2003 16:45 |
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gible wrote on Fri, 05 December 2003 15:33 | Why not have the IT guild race have lots(1000's if not 10,000's) of jump gate frieghter ships and have them "sell" or "lease" them to other races as needed - probably sold in exchange for a suitable similar design eg LF+JG for LF+coloniser pod. You can still send an empty colony ship thru the gate and transfer colonists to it once your JG frieghters arrive.
Of course this requires the guild race to be played.
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Personally, I feel the Guild, as an active host is better than hacking up stars!... yes, JG's could be provided to the races... however, the item is one of the more advanced ones the MT offers... it is not one which is received early, which implies an unknown gen time for the game.
Concerning gen time ... the Guild would need to establish itself in each pocket and get the tech for any/any gates... pretty major anyway (considering 3000 ly across the galaxy)
Concerning currency ... minerals are the only currency which makes sense, not that they are of much value to the Guild but they are of value to the other races.
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Re: Pockets of Planets - jumpgates / starting ships |
Fri, 05 December 2003 20:33 |
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A few questions and statements here:
1) if we suspend all the players while the IT does his thing is it planned to make them recolonize or leave 100 people and have a couple freighters holding them there?
2) If no one minds not starting with any ships I can pull off an easy "Nubian Jump Gate Freighter" thing that the IT race can give out later. Current design has 6000kt storage capasity, and can move at warp 10.. (maybe that's too much.. I could tone the engine down.)
3) You don't have to ban AR, but SS... With all that time the IT race will likely spend for an AH compatable game to earn up tech.. He'll start with a huge bonus in Con and Prop.
4) If you start with a lot of players the difficulty goes up and the spacing distances go down... Course, (maybe my islands were just too big ) Anyway, I think 9 or 10 players should be the top.. IMHO.
5) Advantages of a non AH game: Easier generation turn over, (doesn't require so long for the IT to get all that tech and he can slack off and build any/any gates with just 100 people. (host then just leaves the tech for any/any down to 0 and all other rules remain intact.)
6) My original idea was just to let the IT races live 1 per pocket, and venture out into deep space on their own and claim planets like foot hold worlds. Because the whole concept required low difficulty in setup, and I thought it would be interesting to 1) have an all IT game, 2) have to breech enemy defences and setup a base to be able to get any kind of swift reenforcements in. And of course allying with an neighbor "pocket" would make merging easy. ALSO, I can move the 2nd worlds back to their HW's pocket easy. Unless you'd rather have an embasy type situation? Then I just make sure no 2 HW's are on the same place, or no more than 2 colonies per pocket.
7) With probably no more than 8 players PBEM might not be so bad. But no schedualed turn gens.
Lastly, I think that as far as setup goes, we should really try and keep it rather simple. Unless you don't mind a fairly long construction time or more than 1 person working on setting things up.
That's just what I think though.. Oh and how did you guys plan to start with 10 ships? I'd like to know the spesific idea you had in mind.
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Re: Pockets of Planets - jumpgates / starting ships |
Fri, 05 December 2003 22:03 |
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LEit | | Lt. Commander | Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003 Location: CT | |
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Captain Maim wrote on Fri, 05 December 2003 20:33 | 3) You don't have to ban AR, but SS... With all that time the IT race will likely spend for an AH compatable game to earn up tech.. He'll start with a huge bonus in Con and Prop.
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You can get around this with the 'Summer' cheat. Give the IT a pile of con/prop scrappers, in 30 turns or so you should be able to get the needed tech.
[Updated on: Fri, 05 December 2003 22:04]
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Re: Pockets of Planets - jumpgates / starting ships |
Fri, 05 December 2003 22:26 |
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LEit wrote on Sat, 06 December 2003 04:03 |
Captain Maim wrote on Fri, 05 December 2003 20:33 | 3) You don't have to ban AR, but SS... With all that time the IT race will likely spend for an AH compatable game to earn up tech.. He'll start with a huge bonus in Con and Prop.
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You can get around this with the 'Summer' cheat. Give the IT a pile of con/prop scrappers, in 30 turns or so you should be able to get the needed tech.
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Explain how this "Summer" cheat works? How is it done?
[Mod edit: fixed quote.]
[Updated on: Sat, 06 December 2003 17:00] by Moderator
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Re: Pockets of Planets - jumpgates / starting ships |
Fri, 05 December 2003 23:57 |
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I believe the summer cheat was done by adjusting the costs/tech of the nubian hull to zero, building masses of them, adjusting them back again and scrapping them, resulting in tech and mineral advantages.
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Re: Pockets of Planets - jumpgates / starting ships |
Sat, 06 December 2003 00:26 |
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OH! Thanks! That's a great idea! That'll take like FOREVER off the setup time! Now it's just like... Um.. 26+19-10 years to research! I can't belive I never thought about doing that! So, in that case I can figure out how to get all the rest done.. Sheesh.. What's wrong with me.. hehe.. That should relieve a lot of what was such a pain before to do before...
(and suddenly the idea of all them ships isn't so ludicris. I can manage to get the jump gate tech avalible like year 1, that's easy. And hehe, now I know how to solve so they can start with some.. if that's the plan.)
On a slightly similar note, in another game I'm already serving a similar role that this IT player would do (I mean if he's an active player.) Though if he can't expand.... That just means he's a token player most of the time.. I guess that's fine. I'd be happy to just manage a token player like that. Maybe.. hmm.. Dunno being an active player could be extra cool too though.
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Added:
I have a super simple solution now, It does require banning AR, but it also means that the any/any gates can be made WITHOUT ANY researching at all! And can be built super fast! (I'll make an AR player do it! [yes it's AH compatable.]) Advantages: You can have SS, anyone can "loot" the ore that will pool up at the gate worlds (just use a miner and start collecting ore.) I also rigged them so if attacked they'll kick butt.. Plus they're replaceable later on! By the AR race. They'll also catch packets at warp 13.. just... cause I could. There's a pile of attributes I applied to these but that's not the point. Point is. Gible got me thinking and I came up with a really time saving way to do it all.
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Added again:
Okay I've got a functioning test game up. No IT in the whole game but I've got any/any gates on every pocket, (note, I could have if I wanted to, make the pockets smaller, and I could have done whatever I wanted with the jump transports. I ended up giving them peerless scanners just cause.) If anyone wants to see I can email them or something, (also note, I made some mistakes cause.. well let's face it, this was just a test gen and I was being semi lazy.) As an additional bonus if by some evil miracal a gate node goes down from attack, it's easily and super cheaply replaced even on AH!
[Updated on: Sat, 06 December 2003 05:13]
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